The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-04-06

BRooKLYS, April 3.-The Rev r. Dewitt
Talmage, d. D., has returned from the west.
after an absence Of nearly three weeks, in
which he preached and icctured in fifteen
cities to immense throDgs A vast congrega-
was present at the Tabernacle this morning
and joined with fine effect in singing the
hymn which begins;
Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Docs his successive journeys run.
DIR. Talnage's subject was "A Live
Church. and his text Revelations ii, 5, O.:
''Unto the angel of the church in Smyrna
write: These things saith the first and the
last, which was dead and is alive. l know
thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, but
thou art fich.n
Smyrna was great city Of the ancients,
bounded on three sides by mountains. 1t
was the central emporium of the Levsntine
trade. In that prosperous and brilliant city
there was a Christian church established
After II had existed for a while II was
rocked down by an earthquake. 1t was re-
built Then il was consumed by confag-
ration that swept over the entire city. That
church went through fire, and trouble, and
disaster, but kept on TO great spiritual pros
perity. The fact was that church had the
grace OF God, an ever active principle. Had
it been otherwise, all the grandeur Of archi-
lecture and all the pomp Of surroundings
would only have been the ornament OF death
the gurands of coffin, the plutnss of a
hearse.
1t may be profitable TO consider what are
the elements Of live church.
remark ia the first place, that one char
acteristic Of such church is puuctuality in
meeting its engagements. All ecclesiastical
institutions have financial relations and they
ought b meet their obligations just as GER
tainly as men meet their obligations ut the
bank When a church Of God is not as faith
full in its promises AS the Bank of England
IL ceases To DO "A church of God. II ought TO
be understood that prayers cannot paint a
church, ami prayers cannot pay the winter S
coal bill, and prayers cannot meet the insur-
ance and that, while prayers can do a thou
sand things, there are IA thousand things that
prayers cannot do. Prayer for any particu-
lar church will never reach heaven high un-
less it goes down pocket deep. In my church
at the west there was "a man of comfortable
means, who used To pray for his pastor in
such elongated style that he became a
nuisance IN the prayer meeting; asking God,
in a prayer that was almost without ceasing,
that the pastor might bo blessed IN his basket
and in his store while the fact was ha never
paid anything If VIC pray for the advance
rpent Ut the church and do not out OF our
means contribute TO its advancement, our
prayer is only mockery Let the church Of
God then meet its obligations on the outside
and lei the members Of the congregation
meet the obligations on the inside, anu the
church will be financially prosperous
Let m- say, also, that there must he pune
tuality ~ the ATTENDANCE ON the house OF the
Lord. If tue service begins at 1920 In the
at nj "a
church will not come at l0:45 IL the service
is to begin at 80 in the evening, the regular
congregation of a live church will not come
at7;45 IN some churches | have noticed the
people are always tardy. There are some
people who are always late. They were born
too late, and the probability is they will die
too late The rustling of dresses up the aisle
and the slanming of doors, and the treadlng
of heavy feet, is poor inspiration for minis
ter. It requires great abstraction in a
pastors mind to proceed with the prelimin-
AIRY exercises of the church when one-half of
the audience seated are looking around to sec
the other half come in. Such difference of
attendance upon the house of God may be a
difference of time pieces, butthe live church
of which am speaking ought to so by rail-
road time, and that is pretty well understood
in all our communities. There Is one hymn
that ought 10 be sung in great many Chris
tian families on Sabbath morning: Early.
my God, without delay | haste to seek thy
place.
Another characteristic of a live church is
the fact that all the people participate in the
exercises. A stranger can tell by the way the
first tune starts whether there is any life
there. church that does not sing Is dead
church 1t is awful to find cold drizzle of
music coming down from the organ loft
while all the people beneath sit in silence.
When tune wanders around. lonely and I'M
befriended and is finally lost amid the arches
because the people do not join in it, there is
not much melody made unto the Lord. In
heaven they all sing, though some there can
not sing half as well as Others. The Metho-
dist church has sung all around the world and
gone from conquest TO conquest. among other
things, because it is a singing church, and
any Christian church organization that with
enthusiasm performs this part of its duty
will go on from triumph TO triumph, A
church OF God that can sing can do anything
that ought 20 be done. We go forth into this
holy war with the Bible in one hand and a
hymn book in the other. OH We who used to
sing the praises of the Lord and have got out
of the habit. take your harps down from the
willows 1 am glad to know that, a
church. we are making advancement in this
respect When came TO be your pastor we
had an excellent choir in the little chapel, and
they sang very sweetly to us sabbath by
Sabbath; bnt ever and anon there was
trouble, for you know that the choirs in the
United States are the Waterloos where the
great battles go on, One Sunday they will
sing like angels, and the next Sunday they
will lie mad and will not sing at all We re-
solved TO settle all the difficulties and have
one skillfn man at the organ and one man to
do the work of precentor; and now, from
Sabbath to Sabbath. the song comes up like
the voice of mighty tbunderings.
Let those refuse TO sing
Who never knew our God.
But children of the heavenly king
Should speak their joys abroad.
On the way TO triumph that never ends
and pleasures that never die-singl
Another characteristic of live church is
a fiourishiug Sabbath school 1t is too late
in the history of the Christian church to
argue the benefit of such an institution The
Sabbath school is not supplement to the
church; it is its right arm But you say
there are dead churches that have Sabbath
schools Yes, but the Sabbath schools are
dead, too. 1t is n dead mother holding in
her arms dead child. But when superin-
tendent, and teachers and scholars come on
Sabbath afternoon together, their faces glow
ing with interest and enthusiasm. and their
songs are heard all through the exercises, and
at the close they go away feeling they have
been on the Mount of Transfiguration-that
Is live school, and it is characteristic of
live church There is only one thing / have
against the Sabbath schools of this country,
and that is, they are too respectable We
gather into our schools the children of the re-
hal
but alas for the great multitude
of the children of the abandoned and
the lost! A few of them are gath
cred into our Sabbath schools: but what
about the 10000 destitute children of New
York and the score of thousands of destitute
children Of Brooklyn around whom are thrown
no benign and heavenly and Christian infiu-
encesf 1t Is tremendous question, what is
to become of the destitute children of these
citiesi We must either act ON them or they
viii act ON us. We win either Christianizs
them or they will heathenize us. 1t is a ques-
ton not more for the Christian than for the
philanthropist and the statesman Oh, il we
could have all these suffering little ones
gathered together, what q scene of hunger
and wretchetlness and rags and sim and
trouble and darknessi II we could see those
little feet on the broad road to death. which
through Christian charity ought to be press
ing the narrow path of life; If we could hear
those voices in blasphemy, which ought to be
singing the praises Of God; IL we could see
those little hearts, which at that age ought
not 20 be soiled with one unclean thought, be-
coming the sewers for every abomination: IL
we could see those suffering little ones sacri-
need on the altar of every ubiquitous passion
and baptized with fire from the lava of the
PIT we would recoil, crying out: "Avannt,
thou dream OF helll' They are not always
going to bechildren They are coming mp to be
the men and women Of this country. That spark
OF iniquity that might now be put out with
one drop Of the water of life will become the
conhagr alton OF every green thing that God
ever planted in the soul That which ought
to have been a femnla Of the Holy Ghost will